The Master (2012)

The Master Synopsis

A striking portrait of drifters and seekers in post World War II America, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master unfolds the journey of a Naval veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) who arrives home from war unsettled and uncertain of his future – until he is tantalized by The Cause and its charismatic leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

January is the time of year when everyone from diehard cinephiles to movie critics look back on the previous year’s film offerings and assign them a numeric value. This is what the “Best Of” lists are all about, and it’s not the most enjoyable process. If you think otherwise, at least check out this one particular movie ranking, which professes to rank the top films of not the year but of the past decade. We guarantee it’ll light a fire under your butt.

The Master, last year's beguiling gem from Paul Thomas Anderson, is the exception to most rules, and its deleted scenes are too. Cut together by Anderson, complete with music from Jonny Greenwood and a few period-appropriate songs, the scenes have been perfectly described as a kind of B-side to The Master, a companion that echoes the same themes but is distinct from the main product

No one seems to want to compete with The Twilight Saga this week, making this week’s home entertainment releases almost as dismal as the stuff at the box office this past weekend. The final installation in the franchise drops on Saturday...

If you're a movie poster collector, there's one more reason to look forward to Oscar night. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's art division, Mondo, has three new posters set to be unveiled during the Academy Awards broadcast, marking their 2nd annual poster series tied to the nominated films in select categories. Check out three of the posters set to go on sale this Sunday ahead.

"Harvey knows two things before he gets up in the morning: Megan thinks PTA is a god, and PTA isn’t going to do more press just because he’s asked," said a source close to the feud. "So that makes The Master’s receipts her fault. And she’s 25, so when he tells her that, she believes it. And then he tortures her about it.”

"I think the audience had trouble with the movie and needed to be guided and eased into it,” Weinstein said. “I was so enamored with the film that I didn’t think the audience would have that trouble. ... I do think the film will stand up and have a long life down the line.”

The Master will run for a decent cost, with Blu-ray copies costing $39.99 and DVD copies running more cheaply, at $29.98. Additionally, extras with the Blu-ray and DVD sets seem to be fairly interesting, although they are subject to change. This includes footage from the making of the film, as well as outtakes edited to music by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood, who put together the soundtrack for the film.

Greenwood, who is probably best known for being a member of the Grammy Award-winning band Radiohead, has been working as a film composer since writing the music for Simon Pummell's documentary Bodysong and previously worked with Anderson on 2007's There Will Be Blood (for which he earned a BAFTA nomination). Obviously the studio is trying to get his music for The Master noticed in the Oscar's Best Original Score category for this year...

As we put a cap on the cinematic year, we wanted to go back and single out the duos who turned our heads with combustible on-screen chemistry. We admit to cheating in at least one selection, and we admit an over-reliance on the Hollywood “bromance.” But we think it’s a great list.

2012 was a really, really hard year to sum up in list form, and a top 20 would really be more appropriate to reflect the astonishing variety of blockbusters, out-of-nowhere successes and totally tiny arthouse stuff that grabbed me this year. A lot of these movies snuck up on me, only revealing their brilliance long after I'd written a review or thought I'd forgotten about it. Plenty of those not on this list did the opposite, making an amazing first impression and fading so quickly

This morning the Screen Actors Guild announced their nominees for the best performances of the year, and threw in more than a few surprises. Nicole Kidman for The Paperboy? Javier Bardem for Skyfall? Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for Best Ensemble? In the world of people who aim to predict the Academy Awards, these nods raised a lot of questions

We are officially in the onslaught part of the awards season, where every critic's group from New York and Los Angeles to Tulsa gathers together, picks their favorites, and announces their winners for the world to decide whether or not they're important. All these (occasionally) highbrow notices will be followed up by Thursday's Golden Globes nominations

Anderson took to the stage following a 70mm screening of The Master at Astor Theater in Melbourne, Australia. It’s an hour-long conversation with an unusually reserved filmmaker, and for those who adored the film, it’s a must-watch.

Rudolph left her comfy comedy terrain behind in 2009, offering a somber and moving portrayal of an anxious expecting mother in the quirky drama Away We Go. And it seems Anderson is mulling over a similarly risky leap of his own, considering crafting his own comedy. While doing press for The Master, the five-time Academy Award-nominated director was asked if there is any chance he might helm a comedy.

James Franco is ever-present enough, and The Master is weird enough, that I might somehow be able to convince you that he really did play Freddie Quell in The Master maybe in a flashback scene or interrogation scene, in a quick flash that went unnoticed. But, in fact, Joaquin Phoenix played the part-- brilliantly, actually-

Despite the fact that he's likely to receive an Oscar nomination for his work in The Master, Joaquin Phoenix should never have been expected to take the whole charade of awards season seriously. This is a guy who's been Oscar-nominated twice and looked completely miserable at both ceremonies, then deliberately blew up his career with the faux-documentary I'm Still Here

The first movie awards show of the season also tends to be one of the most interesting, as every year the Gotham Independent Film Awards showcase some of the most fascinating and under appreciated indie films released-- including many that have absolutely zero shot at Oscar attention. They've kept up that tradition this year, announcing a slate of nominees

It's rare for a new trailer to be released once a film has already reached theaters nationwide, but as anyone who has seen it can attest to, The Master is no ordinary film. A fascinating, complex movie about cults, the post-war era and relationships, the new work from Paul Thomas Anderson isn't exactly standard blockbuster fare, but it's still managed to find success...

I was lucky enough to see Anderson’s film at TIFF, where the movie screened in 70mm. I sat next to my good friend Jay Morong, a lecturer of Theater and Film at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and picked his brain on the beauty of PTA’s vision, and the importance of 70mm projection. Here’s what he had to say.

The Master racked up a per-theater average of $145,949 according to weekend estimates. Oddly enough, Master topped a record that’d barely had time to establish itself. Earlier this year, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom opened to a per-theater average of $130,749.

How many Resident Evil movies does it take before audiences get bored? No one's quite sure, but after this weekend's disappointing debut of Resident Evil: Retribution, we may be closing in on an answer.

In the battle of the Paul Andersons at the box office, each one of them gets to be a winner in their own way. Paul Thomas, director of the fascinating new film The Master, is leading the critical pack with an 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Paul W.S. will be sitting happily on top of the box office with Resident Evil: Retribution

This week on Operation Kino, all four of us are back together again, but not in the same country, with Katey calling in from the Toronto Film Festival so we can review The Master, which premiered there. And because Patches was also up in Toronto, we dedicate Segment 3 to discussing the festival, both which films we saw that we liked and the general importance of Toronto

The Toronto Film Festival technically doesn't wrap up until Sunday, when award winners will be announced (including the usually important Audience Award) and the crowds will recede from downtown Toronto for another year. But Team Cinema Blend has already left the premises, with dozens of movies and a handful interviews under our belts

With Katey arriving in Toronto yesterday afternoon, Team Cinema Blend was officially two member strong on the ground at the Toronto Film Festival-- for 24 hours, at least. Today Sean takes off, which left us one chance to get together and talk about what we had seen. Luckily we had just come out of one movie together, the highly anticipated The Master

The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's long-awaited follow-up to his Oscar-winning and hard-hitting drama There Will Be Blood, will hit theaters on September 21st. But those around New York City will have a special chance to see the film tomorrow night.

They say that Rorschach tests are designed not to have a specific image, but rather are up for the subject's interpretation. The results are then analyzed to try and examine how the subject's mind works. Watching this new clip from The Master, it's pretty easy to see how Joaquin Phoenix's character's mind works: he thinks about sex. A lot.

If you haven't noticed from all the festival buzz, or the kids trudging back to school or that slight drop in temperature outside, the fall movie season is finally gearing up, helping us leave behind the thrilling blockbusters of summer and move along to the headier, chillier and sometimes even more thrilling films of autumn

Now that we've reached the end of August it means that Oscar season is about to begin, and certainly one of the leaders of the pack is Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. While there certainly is some serious competition this year from directors like Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow, Ang Lee, and Tom Hooper, everything we've seen from Anderson's latest has been nothing short of jaw-dropping. And the latest trailer does absolutely nothing to change that record:

You heard that right, folks. Anderson’s screening the film in select cities ahead of its pre-destined screenings at the prominent fall film festivals (Venice, Toronto and possibly Telluride). This piggybacks on the surprise Master screening Anderson held in Santa Monica.

If it lives up to the cinematography, production design and all-around style that we've seen from Paul Thomas Anderson's previous movies, The Master's greatness will only be evident when you actually see it-- after all, you need to see all the moving parts to understand what he's going for

The Master stars Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Sutton, a war veteran who has become a hard-drinking drifter living in post-war America. Things begin to turn around for him when he meets Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a charismatic, L. Ron Hubbard-type individual who has begun the creation of his own faith-based organization.

With The Master scheduled for release on September 14, as well as a spot in the Toronto Film Festival, we don't have that much longer to wait to finally get a look at it. But a few lucky moviegoers in Los Angeles, who were smart enough to check out a theatrical presentation of The Shining

The TIFF screening will mark the North American premiere of Anderson’s film, which casts Philip Seymour Hoffman as the mysterious leader of a religious cult who takes a wayward man (Joaquin Phoenix) under his wing for potential guidance.

Unfortunately, with the good news of The Master being moved up comes bad news that Andrew Dominik's next film, Killing Them Softly, will be pushed back. While the crime thriller was originally going to make it to theaters on September 21st, the trade says that it has been moved back to October 19th. The film will be competing against both Alex Cross, starring Tyler Perry and Matthew Fox, and Paranormal Activity 4.

We've already gotten to see some footage from Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. Following a footage presentation at this year's Cannes Film Festival, two short teasers were released online that introduced us to the film's two central characters: Freddie Sutton (Joaquin Phoenix) and Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

If you're not perpetually excited for the next Paul Thomas Anderson movie I think something may be wrong with your brain. Since making his mark on Hollywood back in 2007 with Boogie Nights, the filmmaker has continued to amazed us with bolder and more impressive work each time out. We've been waiting a long time for him to make another movie...

It's also our first look at Amy Adams in the film, who we've been told is playing Hoffman's character's wife, but we don't' really know much of anything about this movie for sure. All the same, the focus is still on Phoenix's character, from that excellent extended scene of him climbing out of a river bank to his outburst in a jail cell

Even though he was famous years before he appeared in Magnolia, Tom Cruise has a lot to thank writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson for. Simply put, the filmmaker gave the actor one of the best roles of his life. Playing the alpha-male testosterone-fueled, daddy-issue-filled Frank T.J. Mackey, Cruise was able to both access his terrific charisma as well as he's stunning dramatic powers and the result got him an Academy Award nomination.

At this point we know so little for certain about the plot it seems silly to speculate further, but suffice it to say this is not at all what I was expecting from our first look at the film. The focus on Phoenix, the deliberate mystery about exactly what he did and his mental state, and the rhythmic score that accompanies the flashbacks

Anderson accompanied the visuals with the description, “These shots include our lovely Negative Cutter, Simone, imported all the way from France to cut 65mm negative. She does it all with a pair of scissors from Staples.” How do you not love that?

It's seemed like a foregone conclusion for a while now that Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master would get a release this year in prime Oscar season, given the stellar cast-- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams-- the director's own pedigree, and the fact that it's coming from the Weinstein Company

Granted, that's not a huge surprise-- a movie as high-profile as this one, with The Weinstein Company distributing it, was bound to find an Oscar-season release, and October puts it just after the big festivals in New York and Toronto, while also making it entirely possible that it could premiere at either of those fests

When it comes to the debate of IMAX vs. 3D, we here at Cinema Blend are staunchly in favor of the former. Managing to create what appears to be actual depth instead of artificial depth, IMAX is the most immersive format currently available for filmmakers. Some of the best action sequences from last year came courtesy of Brad Bird using 65mm print for scenes in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and we can't wait to see what other filmmakers do with it.

In a couple weeks, David Fincher's newest film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, will be arriving in theaters. In addition to being his second film in two years, the movie is also a reunion between the director at Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, who, along with Atticus Ross, composed the score for the film. But Fincher isn't the only Oscar nominated director deciding to reteam with a composer from an incredibly popular band.

Paul Thomas Anderson is directing another movie. Sure, we've known about it for a couple weeks now, but I feel like celebrating whenever I hear that bit of news. The project, formally titled The Master, already stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in the lead roles, but now the cast has received a few additions.

The biggest problem with Paul Thomas Anderson movies is that there simply aren't enough of them. With only five feature titles under his belt, the There Will Be Blood director has established a deliberate pace that ensures that his films are of the highest grade, but also leaves three to five year gaps between projects that leave fans foaming at the mouth.

I was doing cartwheels around my apartment back in February when it was announced that Paul Thomas Anderson had potentially found funding for two of his upcoming projects, the Scientology parable The Master, and an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice.

It's unclear exactly what the hurdle is-- was Anderson unhappy with the performances, or his writing, or are the Scientologists striking back somehow?-- but it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that the auteur